This invention is in the field of automatically preventing a moving vehicle's driver from texting and doing other similar excessively dangerous activities.
Recently, a widely watched daytime television show challenged individuals in its audience to sign a commitment to “No Phone Zones”, to stop using cellular telephones in places, especially moving vehicles, where such activities are dangerous, citing many examples of horrible accidents in which a vehicle's driver was distracted by their using these cell phones. The inventor believes that audience members signing a commitment will not satisfactorily solve the problem, but a technological solution will be needed.
In this inventor's prior patents and applications which have been incorporated by reference, ultrasonic or low-power radio “control” signals by doorways at entrances to or exits from a restricted area, or throughout the “area”, disable or enable cell phone components, such as keyboards, but disabling can be overridden by the cell phone service provider if an emergency requires the cell phone to be enabled. Disabling the keyboard means not recognizing key strokes after more than, say, three pressings of any keyboard key in a predetermined time period, say, 10 seconds, to nevertheless allow a user to dial an emergency number such as 911, or to speed dial often used numbers. Disabling a keyboard in this way would deter a moving vehicle's driver from being distracted by texting a lot of characters. Herein, the inventor applies the concepts and techniques of these prior patents, and an application, specifically to the problem of preventing moving vehicle's drivers from using cell phones while the vehicle s in motion. Specific significant techniques include using ultrasonic courtesy signal transit times to locate where the cell phone is at inside the vehicle, and using overrides to allow some action for some special case of a more general case where the activity is not allowed for the general case. In discussing the specific art in this disclosure, the prior art's term “control signal” is replaced with this disclosure's “courtesy signal”, the prior art's term “area” is replaced with this disclosure's “zone”, the system comprising a cell phone incorporating a courtesy signal transmitter and courtesy signal receiver, is a “courteous cell phone system”, and a cell phone that has the capabilities described herein is “courtesy cell phone compliant”.